Rage
by okh-eshivar
Summary: Rage. A lot of rage. Building up. Pouring out. I tried to hide it, mask it, control it but now it’s all spilling over. Like the blood gushing from my knuckles. The bag bucks beneath my punch, smearing blood across it's surface. Helga Sinclair/ Christopher


Rage. A lot of rage. Building up. Pouring out. I tried to hide it, mask it, control it but now it's all spilling from me like a pot boiling over. Like the blood gushing from my knuckles. Like the stabbing pain in my chest. It's too much. Too much.

The punching bag swings in unison with my trained fists, covered in my blood. I don't care. I ignore the ache in my hands, and my feet, and my head. I don't even notice how badly I am shaking. The only thing I let distract me is the growing lump in my throat that continues to threaten my eyes with the wetness of tears.

NO!

With every time the liquid tries to spill over onto my cheeks, an anger beyond my comprehension grips my mind and my arms flare out with lightning speed and crushing force, my bare fists make violent contact with the heavy leather bag in front of me. The skin that should be enveloping my knuckles has long since been scraped off, torn from me by the roughness of the bag's surface, leaving raw flesh and a torrent of crimson fluid exposed to the world. I don't care. The pain is a distraction. From the squeezing sensation around my heart. From the seething rage that keeps me from collapsing onto the floor from exhaustion. From him.

Chris…

I scream from within the blanket of frustration and anger and pain that refuses to release me, my hands again crashing into the bag, badly bruised, horribly skinned, as another tear threatens to leave my eyes. I will **not** cry. Helga Sinclair does not cry. _Lt. _Helga Sinclair. To cry is a sign of weakness. To cry is to admit defeat.

Goddamnit, Chris! How dare you! How could you leave me?! We were so happy!

My right leg flares out as I spin on my heel, slamming my shin into my target. A sharp, stabbing pain shoots from the point of contact and echoes into the depths of my skull, and I focus my entire mind on that pain. It almost distracts me for but a few seconds as I release a hissing wince through my clenched jaw, my teeth aching from my grinding them together. Almost distracts me. Almost.

"Lt. Helga Sinclair? I…I'm afraid I have some bad news for you. Your husband, Christopher Jenkins, we…we've decided to call off the search.. We…are relatively certain that he was gunned down by the enemy in the line of combat. We are presuming him deceased, as of today. I'm…I'm terribly sorry."

No…I hit the bag with a fistful of fire and this time my strike is answered with several cracks and a sickening pain as two of my fingers break. It is enough to force me to my knees, shaking legs finally giving way beneath the agony of eight years of happiness closing in all around me. My world is folding over itself, and for the first time in a decade I feel utterly hopeless under its overwhelming might. He had always given me the will I needed to stand back up and confront my enemy head on. Always. His strength combined with mine gave me the drive to laugh in the face of death.

Stupid.

Now death was laughing back.

I slam my clenched fists into the floor, sending shockwaves of pain rocketing through my body, and I suddenly begin drowning beneath the tidal wave of emotions that I had managed to hold back with a raging wall of fire. I lean over my legs, rest my forehead against the crooks of my pressed together elbows, and sob. I cry and scream and curse everything I have ever known. I curse Chris. I curse his murderers. I curse my father. And I curse myself twice. We had been so happy…

"Helga! Are you all right?" The voice that emerges suddenly from behind me is full of urgent concern. I don't lift my head to face its source, as I already know who it belongs to. Mr. Whitmore. My current employer. Of course he's here, this is his house for chrissake. I can't bring myself to care that he is seeing me in such a horrible state. I feel a hand flatten out against my back and watch from my peripheral as he kneels next to me, taking my badly beaten hands gingerly by their wrists and gasping.

"What have you done to your hands?" I do not answer him. I can only repeat the same string of words over and over through my tears. "He's dead, oh god he's really dead, he's gone…"

I can almost feel the confusion on his face turn into sad realization as his mind searches back to last winter, to the time when Chris had first gone MIA.

"Oh, Helga…" The older man hung his head with sorrow and sympathy and can only stare at my back as I try to swallow back the tears.

"They…came earlier. Told me…they were calling off the search…Oh god, he's really gone…" I try to explain through the haze in my mind and the ringing in my ears. "Chris…"

"Helga…I…I'm so sorry…"

"I thought… maybe… there was still a chance he was alive…out there somewhere… No…"

He sighs with the heaviness of sadness and pity and pats my back, urging me to get up.

"Come on up, dear. We've got to get you to a doctor. Then you can take as much time as you need off work. Lord, I'm so sorry. Christopher, he was a truly great man. But he wouldn't want you to suffer like this, you know. Come on, dear." He pulls on my right arm, and I ignore the dizziness that has suddenly assaulted me as I try to stand. My legs shake so badly beneath me that I nearly collapse again. He catches me and helps me upright, wrapping my arm across his shoulders for support. I'm incredibly exhausted, something I had only vaguely noticed earlier, and the urge to sleep was suddenly upon me, my eyelids wavering heavily. With every step, the pain shooting up my leg and arm become increasingly worse, and it keeps me awake as we make our way in his car.

I was hardly awake when we finally made it to a hospital, and by the time my torn apart hands were treated, bandaged, and casted, I was teetering at the edge of consciousness. I remember falling into the comfortable oblivion of sleep on the drive back to the Whitmore mansion. My last thought was a prayer that I would not dream of him. Not now.

Not ever.

We had been so happy…

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A/N: Random idea. I love Helga, she was my favorite character in the movie, and she deserves more fandom. I can just imagine her sparring and inflicting some self destructive damage in times of intense emotion, so that's what I did.

R&R please ^^


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